8 THE POLITICS ARE PERSONAL
In the Mood for Love Wong Kar-Wei (2000) China
Wong, Kar-Wai. In the Mood for Love. The Criterion Collection. 2000.
There are three Chinas: Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Mainland China was closed off from much of the world under Chairman Mao Zedong who controlled China from October 1st, 1949 to his death in 1976.
Hong Kong was an independent city under British control until 1997 when it reverted to China.
When the Chinese Government was exiled after the social revolution in 1949, they went to Taiwan, the island formerly known as Formosa. The United States had diplomatic relations with the Nationalist Government and did not recognize Mainland China, but instead maintained relations with the former government in Taiwan. This island nation is officially known as The Republic of China.
Martial Arts movies have been central to film production since the first Chinese filmmakers. Chinese Martial Arts, known as Kung Fu or Wuxia films are similar in some ways to Samurai movies, they are set in the classical period. But unlike the aristocratic Samurai who serves a lord or shogun, the Wuxia fighter is independent, often a peasant, and sometimes a woman.
The first Chinese film center was in Shanghai on the mainland. Zhang Shichuan co-founded Mingxing Film Company (Star Films) with Zheng Zhenqiu in 1922. He directed 150 movies. The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, adapted from the novel The Tale of the Extraordinary Swordsmen, was China’s first Martial Arts movie. It was 27 hours long, filmed and released in sixteen parts between 1928 and 1931, kind of like the Star Wars movies.
In 1931, Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist Government banned Martial Arts Movies. Mingxing Studios was destroyed by Japanese bombs in the Battle of Shanghai. Nearly all of Zhang’s Martial Arts movies were destroyed by the Japanese or the Chinese Nationalist government.
The Shaw Brothers, Run Run, Runje, and Runme, moved their production studio from Shanghai to Hong Kong before the Japanese invasion. By 1961, Shaw Productions was the largest privately owned production company in the world.[1]
The Shaw Brothers produced King Hu’s debut Wuxia film from Taiwan, Come Drink With Me. The film features a young female martial artist who fights the oppressors and avenges the innocent.[2]
Bruce Lee, the Chinese Martial Arts master who brought Kung Fu Movies to the World was born in the United States in 1940, grew up in Kowloon, Hong Kong, attended college at the University of Washington, then began making movies in Hong Kong with the Shaw Brothers’ production company, Movietown.[3]
Wong Kar-Wai was born in 1958 in Shanghai. Chungking Express was the first in his Hong Kong Trilogy. The other two films are Fallen Angels and Happy Together, which won Best Director at Cannes.
In the Mood for Love is about two people exiled from Shanghai in British Hong Kong. They move into an apartment building on the same day and gradually realize that their respective spouses are c